COM AddIN Not loading

[Guest]

Sounds like addIn loading problem are common in the forum but I have so far
not foudn anything that could help me.

I have developped an outllok AddIn using visual studio .Net and it works
perfectly well.

The issue is that when I deploy it, using the Setup pacxkage created using
VS.Net, the addin loads properly, on some other machines not....!

The same version of office is used (outlook 2003) and as far as I can see
the registry key entries related to my addin are the same...

Anyone with a clue would be a true saviour.... (indeed the tool is ready and
functionning, waiting to be deployed but...)

Cheers
Luc

 

[Guest]

Do you have any more detailed information on the design of your add-in? The
main things to check are whether you have the proper registry keys and that
your add-in is registered.

Also, for .NET you need to ensure that .NET programmability support (the
Office PIA's) are installed via Office setup.

See these links for more info:

Information about designing Office XP add-ins and Office 2003 add-ins by
using the .NET Framework:
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=840585

Developing COM Add-ins for Microsoft Outlook:
http://www.outlookcode.com/d/comaddins.htm

 

[Guest]

Well, yes I can provide more info.

But just for clarity the addin is developed using the "shared add-in"
project type in VS.NET and it works perfectly well. The installer (setup
project generated) works too... or more specifically it does on some and it
doesn't on other machines.... quite irritating especially when noting that
the same versions of office are installed...

As a matter of fact I believe I found the problem (or more precisely how to
get rid of the symptom because it doesn't make any sense to me).

Indeed, in one of the classes there is a declaration of an private object
reference to an external com object... the object exists on all machines (and
is by the way installed by the setup package...) but if I remove that line
the addin loads on all machines (at least all where tested and where it
didn't work before...).

The weird thing is that it is not an error that is happening at run time but
the addin itself is never launched, or more precisely the "Connect" object is
never created (did put some old style tracing messages to track down issue.)

Sounds to me like a flaw in outlook.... I can survive for now but this kind
of thing gives me a strange feeling.... like a Damoclés sword above my
head... when will the next strange thing happen? (for the time being I had to
drop to extra functionality by removing the local reference (but the same
object is used elsewhere....?) and it is not great but if I have to...

Sorry if this message sounds a bit unclear and crazy but this situation
truly is... I believe it should be tracked in MS bug db but I have no clue
how to report this kind of thing.
Cheers
Luc

 

[Guest]

I would bet good money that the add-in is not loaded because the library
referenced by the add-in has not been installed properly on the machines
experiencing this issue. Double-check your install package, verify OS
requirements for this library (what is it anyway?), and make sure that the
library actually gets installed on those PCs.

A quick way to do this is to get the ClassID for the component and ensure
that it is listed in the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID key; the component's ProgID
should also be under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\MyLibrary.MyClass. Also see if you
can instantiate this object alone if you can, by using any of the Office VBA
editors or VB6 or whatever. If your object cannot be instantiated, there's
your problem and that's why the add-in won't load either.

 

[Guest]

Eric,

Probably something like that but not so simple I am affraid. (Don't bet too
fast...;-) ) Indeed, the library that seems to be an issue is the SKype API
Com wrapper (SKYPEAPILib) and it is installed the same way on all machines
(at least the registry entries fo it are the same. (It is by the way no
surprise as it is installed by the same setup package (created by the VS.Net
solution).

Furthermore, the library is used by the add-in (in other modules and for
other purpose) and this works fine. The onoly thing I had to do is remove a
local private object reference to it in one of my classes (but there are
other references to objects from the same library). In other words, quite a
confusing situation.... I could pass the code but am affraid it is a bit long
and probably does not help a lot... but if you want I could send you the
extract of the incriminated module.)

 

[Guest]

Sure, post your code. I'll see if I can spot anything odd.

 

[Guest]

Ok, but it is quite a number of lines... how can I do that without
copy/pasting in the forum directly?
Cheers
Luc